A majority of the rural poor must find their subsistence in the labour market. Understanding the dynamics of the labour market and what interventions are best made in terms of rural employment policies is of vital concern to students and practitioners of development alike. Professor Krishna Bharadwaj, internationally noted economist from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, brings rare abilities of scholarship and insights to bear on the issue in a set of lectures she delivered at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies within its Daniel Thorner Memorial Lecture Programme. The four lectures place the development of labour markets within analytical reading of history and go on review policy interventions which aim to secure sustainable benefits for the rural poor.